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in the cynic Jesus equally implies a dichotomy. Some apologists in the Jewish–Christian
debate aim to return to a more “Hebraic” Jesus and distance themselves from the hellenized
Paul or the creeds (see F. C. Holmgren, The Old Testament and the Significance
of Jesus: Embracing Change – Maintaining Christian Identity, The Emerging Center in
Biblical Scholarship [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999]), which is a reminder that the
contribution of Hengel has yet to be worked out. Moreover, the relevance for rabbinic
studies is still only beginning to be assessed (e.g., The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-
Roman Culture, vol. 1 [ed. P. Schäfer; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1998]).
It might also be asked whether the interest in Hellenistic Judaism is a Christian
phenomenon (cf. Levine, Judaism and Hellenism, 10, on Jesus). To conclude this would
be to deny, however, the vitality of a Greek Jewish tradition from the translation of the
Bible into Greek, to its revisers, on into Byzantium and the modern era. Thus, Greek as
the foundation of Western culture is probably an equally important reason for attraction
to this topic. But caution has been expressed over the potential for misinterpretation of
the modern world, and the “essentialization” of Greek thought (see P. A. Alexander,
“Hellenism and Hellenization as Problematic Historiographical Categories,” in Paul
beyond the Judaism/Hellenism Divide, ed. Engberg-Pedersen, 63–80). And increasing
unease with a dichotomy between Judaism and Hellenism is being expressed (see, e.g.,
E. Will and C. Orrieux, Ioudaïsmos-hellénismos: Essai sur le judaïsme judéen à l’époque
hellénistique [Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 1986]; G. Delling, “Die Begegnung
zwischen Hellenismus und Judentum,” ANRW 2.20.1 [1987]: 3–39; E. S. Gruen,
Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition [Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1998]). Hengel sought to break the dichotomy between Diaspora and
Palestinian Judaism, but he also continued that same dichotomy between Judaism and
Hellenism with his alternatives of acceptance or rejection of the new culture. The
reduction of the ancient world to a Kulturkampf is a historical simplification, but such
binary opposition is popular and continues in literary theory and theology (see the special
issue of the journal Poetics Today [1998]).
The legacy of the nineteenth century—especially of Hegel and Bickerman—is
easy to identify in Hengel. Thus, his emphasis on the resolution of the problem in Christianity
will be hard for many to accept. It is no accident that in his book on the first century
he notes that “the term ‘Hellenistic’ as currently used no longer serves to make any
meaningful differentiation in terms of the history of religions within the history of earliest
Christianity” (The ‘Hellenization’ of Judaea in the First Century after Christ [in collaboration
with Christoph Markschies; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989],
53). Moreover, the importance of Hebraism and Hellenism in the nineteenth century
has continued to have its influence in another form. Hengel’s tendency to equate Hellenism
with paganism (or apostasy, as in Feldman), an association to be found only from
late antiquity in Christian writers (see Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity, 9–11), is
also unfortunate and leads to a misunderstanding of the place of the Jewish Greek writers.
Perhaps the real tragedy of the Maccabean revolt is that it has established an opposition
between Judaism and Hellenism that has persisted ever since. A proper
appreciation of the Hellenic contribution to Judaism therefore remains to be written.
341
J. K. Aitken
University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AA UK